The Gun Launched Reconnaissance System relates to remote visual observation of a target area.
A problem facing the military is obtaining current reconnaissance information concerning enemy troop strength and deployment, armor and heavy weapons support, damage assessment and other enemy activity. Spotter or forward observers or observation aircraft overflights are currently used.
The Gun Launched Reconnaissance System provides for remotely viewing a battlefield or target area without the risk normally associated with reconnaissance. It could replace the spotter or aircraft, hence avoiding possible loss of life or loss of aircraft. This TV system, also provides a quick reaction capability in target location, identification and damage assessment.
The Gun Lanuched Reconnaissance System will aid a naval gunfire mission in generating relative ship-target position and motion information, in evaluating ballistic factors influencing trajectory and in observing the effects of the firing and correcting the gun orders accordingly. Since the monitoring operator will have direct access to information about where the rounds are landing, there will be a reduction in the number of rounds fired in attempting to reduce the mean point of impact error. With the information from the Gun Launched TV, it will be easier to compensate for other factors affecting gun accuracy, such as meterological data, initial velocity variations and relative target position errors.
Another problem with gun launching a TV system is that the ballistic round achieves high accelerations, sometimes up to 50,000g's. The fragile vidicon tubes used in conventional TV cameras would probably not be able to withstand such force.